The details revealed at Flynn's plea agreement hearing and in his criminal statement of offense provide the clearest picture yet of coordination between Flynn and other Trump advisers in their contact with Russian officials. The statement is the first indication that Flynn is cooperating with the special counsel's office.

Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to the president, has pleaded guilty to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in regard to a meeting with a Russian ambassador a year ago and will cooperate with investigators, according to reports.

"I recognize that the actions I acknowledged in court today were wrong", Flynn said in a statement.

Flynn's plea, Warner said, "comes on the heels of a new report about the President's efforts to silence the independent, bipartisan Senate investigation into ties between Trump associates and Russian Federation".

He is the first official who worked in the Trump White House to make a guilty plea in a wide-ranging investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller into possible co-ordination between Russian Federation and the Trump campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

Court papers make clear that Flynn knows the identities of at least two members of Trump's transition team who were intimately aware of his outreach to Russian government officials in the weeks before the inauguration.

Warner, the ranking member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was asked whether he believes Flynn will implicate President Trump.

Flynn admitted he lied to FBI investigators about his private discussions at the end of December 2016 with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador, about United States sanctions imposed on Moscow by the administration of then president Barack Obama. He also receives a speaking fee from a Russian government-run television network that US officials consider a propaganda outlet.

After the December 29 announcement, the Obama administration was openly puzzled by Moscow's decision not to retaliate, and began investigating possible interference by Flynn and the Trump campaign.

ABC News, citing an unnamed source, reported that Flynn is prepared to testify Trump "directed him to make contact with the Russians".

The charges against Flynn relate to a series of discussions the general had last December, during the presidential transition, when he reportedly told Kislyak that Trump's White House might go easy on sanctions against Russian Federation that were imposed by President Obama and asked Kislyak to sabotage a United Nations resolution on Israel that Obama's White House supported.

The Obama administration, in a rare step that shocked its Middle East ally, planned to abstain on the motion rather than veto it as had been done in the past. He told a Trump transition official about that call.

A White House lawyer said that nothing in Flynn's guilty plea "implicates anyone other than Mr Flynn".

"The false statements involved mirror the false statements to White House officials which resulted in his resignation in February of this year", he continued.

Since the first allegations of Russian interference past year, Trump has dismissed it as "fake news" and an excuse for Democratic rival Hillary Clinton's stunning loss in the election.

Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to investigators about these conversations he had with then-Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in December 2016.

But Trump has repeatedly rejected that view. When asked how he pleaded, Flynn only said, "Guilty, your honor".

George Papadopoulos? Just a low-level "volunteer" for the campaign who wasn't even worth remembering for both President Donald Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. As Mueller's probe intensified in the early months of the Trump administration, Gates left the nonprofit altogether.